


changeling

by story_monger



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Character Study, Coda, Gen, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 11:52:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8444773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/story_monger/pseuds/story_monger
Summary: In the aftermath of the events on the module, Jacobi contemplates what he knows and what he doesn't.Post-"Time to Kill" All spoiler warnings apply.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Goddamn, Season 3 is killing it (and me). That episode legitimately traumatized me so now I need to project my feelings onto Jacobi. (I never even identified with him very much and now I'm writing in his POV. Thanks, Shachat.)
> 
> This is unbetad and hashed out within a few hours, so any mistakes are solely on me.

At some point, when the known logic of the world is thrown wholesale out the window, it becomes acceptable—no, expected—to finally crack.

Jacobi does his cracking at 0300 hours in the observation deck-cum-brig, in the company of a flask of whisky. He’s not supposed to have it, but no one had realized he makes a habit of storing emergency alcohol in various locations on the ship. He’s just lucky no one has touched the brig’s stash yet.

Jacobi sequesters himself in the brig’s far corner. The room is only illuminated by the dimmed running lights and whatever ambient light filters through the huge window—the star is on the other side of the station at the moment—so everything is swathed in an extra dimension of shadow. Jacobi examines the shadows between steady swigs of the flask’s contents while he quietly disassembles his own existential crisis. It’s not the first he’s had, but this one has a special edge to it. Listening to your doppelganger die will do that to a guy.

After those hellish initial hours, Jacobi spent the rest of the time in the module burying himself in the certainty that he was real, that Lovelace had been right to lock the doors. He had to, at that point, because the alternative would have been something much uglier, potentially more dangerous. If Eiffel or Maxwell had gotten a whiff of a hint that Jacobi might be doubting himself, hell would have broken loose, and given Lovelace’s stellar capabilities at escalating situations, there stood a very real chance someone would have died. Someone else would have died. Assuming someone died in the first place. Fuck.

Jacobi takes a very deep swig.

So he’d pulled himself through four days on the module by the skin of his teeth while Eiffel stared at the back of his head every time he was turned away and Maxwell looked like she wanted to grieve for him while he stood right there. Then they’d met up with the Hephaestus and after relaying what had happened, Jacobi had pushed through Kepler’s interrogation, and he’d even eked it through Hilbert’s examination. All while maintaining that of course he was himself; of course he was human. No, there were no blank spots at all in his memory. (And there weren't, but how reliable is memory, really?)

Hilbert’s test results are pending; Hilbert had reported he’d have definite conclusions by 0700 hours. Jacobi checks his watch. Four more hours.

He takes another swig from the flask and contemplates the window’s view of pinpricks of light against a background of inky black. He doesn’t tend to linger on how stunningly, stupidly big the universe is. He acknowledges it the way he acknowledges the fact that he’s going to die one day (unless he has already?—no, don’t go there) or that his job is ten kinds of shady. He takes the unwieldy, uncomfortable idea and folds it down into a bite-sized idiom and he carries that around in his pocket, only pulling it out when he needs to give passing acknowledgment to the massive idea lurking somewhere behind him. He’s a practical guy; he makes things blow up. He doesn’t need to think about the universe.

“You should,” Maxwell had said once, on their first space mission together.

“And why is that?” Jacobi had asked, hooking a foot on a nearby handlebar. He hadn’t gotten the hang of not floating away while trying to talk to someone.

“The big bang, right?” Maxwell had asked, grinning in a way that Jacobi would later learn was very much _hers_. “Biggest explosion there was or is or will be.”

Jacobi had contemplated that: an explosion so huge that it turned the corner and _made_ things instead of destroying them. He supposed he could see the appeal.

Now, he imagines he can see the redshift of the galaxies as they zoom away from one another, picking up speed the farther they go. He wonders if that’s what’s going to happen to him and Maxwell. The events on the module tore them in opposite directions, and there’s no going back to the way things were, and now they’re going to keep barreling away from one another until Maxwell becomes a distant pinprick.

Jesus. Jacobi sighs and tilts the flask again. A dribble of alcohol lands in his mouth, and then that’s it. Jacobi lets the empty flask float from his hand and, abruptly, feels on the verge of crying. Which is stupid, however true it is. Jacobi smears one hand over his eyes and is mortified to realize his inhales are starting to shudder. He pulls up his knees and wraps his arms around his shins like a kid and stares hard at the universe waiting on the other side of the window.

“Fuck you,” he said. The universe does not answer.

Jacobi sighs and rests his cheek on one knee. He listens to his breathing stutter through his lungs, his heart pound against his ribcage, the blood rush past his eardrum. It sounds human; it sounds like his own body that he’s known for decades. When Hilbert had taken a blood sample, Jacobi had exhaled too hard when he saw the familiar, glorious red color fill the tubing. Hilbert hadn’t reacted, but maybe he’d realized in that moment that Jacobi had been half waiting for something else to come out of him. Black oil, or purple goo, or that green stuff the X-Files aliens had.

Jacobi’s consumed enough sci fi. He knows the plot twists. Deckard really is a Replicant. Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansen are actually clones. Jacobi knows the script, he’s just never given much thought to the internal monologue of the changeling before. Do changelings know they don’t belong? Do they carry the knowledge somewhere deep inside or are they truly ignorant of themselves? What happens when the fairy court comes calling?

Stop. Stupid. Jacobi presses his hands against the sides of his head. He’s real. He’s Daniel Jacobi and he’s real and he’s _alive_ , he’s _present_ , he didn’t die in a radiation storm, and he didn’t infiltrate the Hephaestus, and the memories bouncing around his head of Maxwell and Kepler and the Hephaestus folks are all real and his own and he’s human and he’s alive and he’s present and he’s real and he’s—

“Jacobi?”

A door squeals open. Jacobi gasps and drops his hands. He stares at the flood of light coming into the brig. The figure hesitates and says again, “Jacobi?”

Lovelace. Jacobi wipes his hands over his face. “Here,” he croaks.

Lovelace pauses then pushes herself into the room. She stops a few feet from where Jacobi is sequestered. The empty flask floats past her face, and she bats it in another direction. For several minutes, they contemplate one another.

“You didn’t actually need to stay here while we wait,” she says at length. “Kepler would have been fine restricting you to the mess hall or something.” Jacobi shifts slightly.

“I figured it would make people feel better. Good faith, right? I don’t want to…” He trails off, unsure where that sentiment is going. He’s unsure where most things are going, at the moment. The booze has properly kicked in. (If he can get drunk, is _that_ proof he’s human?)

Lovelace shrugs as if it doesn’t matter to her. “Hilbert has some preliminary results,” she says. Jacobi’s heart seizes. “Nominal,” Lovelace continues. “Your DNA checks out. Physiology is normal. Brain waves are standard.”

Jacobi blinks at her. “I might be a very well constructed clone,” he says. He realizes it’s the first time he’s said anything out loud that suggests he’s something other than himself. Lovelace doesn’t seem to notice, or she pretends not to.

“Which is why the results are preliminary,” Lovelace agrees in a perfectly even tone. “I just thought you’d want to know.”

“I uh. Thanks.”

Lovelace nods but doesn’t move. Jacobi shifts again.

“How are you?” she asks.

Jacobi barks out a harsh laugh. “You asking seriously?”

“If you want to scream as an answer, that’s acceptable.”

Jacobi laughs again, though it’s softer this time. He shrugs. “Okay,” he says. “Insert scream here.”

“Yeah, I figured.” Lovelace reaches up to grab one of the handles, tethering her in place. Her feet drift forward and back. “Listen,” she says, sounding almost strained now. “If you want to hash out how fucked up this is, let me know, okay?”

“I…why?”

“Because I get it, okay?” Lovelace snaps. “You think I don’t wonder if I’m the same me who left the original Hephaestus?”

Jacobi blinks at her because no, he hadn’t considered that. He suddenly feels very stupid for missing it. Based on Lovelace’s expression, she’s thinking along the same lines.

“I’m just saying,” Lovelace continues, letting go of the bar. “If there’s anyone on this ship who might be able to guess what you’re feeling, it’s me.”

After a long hesitation, Jacobi nods wordlessly. Lovelace nods back and starts to push herself toward the doorway. “You really can come wait in the mess,” she calls back.

“No thanks.”

“It might be good for Maxwell.”

“I doubt it,” Jacobi says. Lovelace exhales hard and closes the door behind her. It locks with a hiss.

Jacobi sinks back into himself with a groaning sigh. He watches his flask bump up against the brig’s ceiling; the panels are brand new thanks to several days of work a few months ago. That makes him remember the old philosophy puzzle Maxwell loves to talk about. A ship sets sail and slowly starts to break down. Eventually, every part, every board, is replaced. Is it still the same ship?

“It’s very applicable to AIs when considering their personhood,” Maxwell had explained once when they were taking a breather during a long-term mission in Peru. They had been lounging in their respective cots, Jacobi fiddling with a Rubik’s cube he used as a destressor, Maxwell typing away at her laptop.

“Because they can be moved from chasis to chasis?” Jacobi had asked.

“And their software is pretty easily editable,” Maxwell had agreed. “I mean, humans are the same way, frankly, but society has more taboos against that one.” She’d dipped just enough coldness in her voice to make her opinion of that clear.

Jacobi had slid the cube’s final side into place and tossed it into the air before catching it.

“Our cells,” he’d said.

“Sorry?”

“That’s what you learn in biology, right? After a few years, all our cells have been replaced. And memories. Every time you recall a memory, it’s altered slightly. At some point, nothing of the old us is left.”

“Oh yeah.” Maxwell had sounded pleased. “Yeah, I remember learning that.”

Jacobi had tossed the cube again. “It’s a little creepy,” he’d said.

Maxwell had shrugged. “It’s how the world works,” she’d replied. And then the conversation had drifted to other things, and Jacobi hadn’t given it much more thought.

Until now, as he raises his hand and examines the dusting of hair atop the tendons, the swollen knuckles, the brown skin littered with tiny, silver scars from countless accidents and burns, the crooked pinky from the time he caught it in a car door. It’s all there, and it seems like it should be real, indisputable proof of who he is, but then Maxwell looks at him like he’s not the same person who discussed old philosophy puzzles with her in a hotel in Peru, and maybe she’s right but not in the way she’s thinking, and everything explodes into opposite directions again.

Jacobi’s not good at putting things back together. It’s not his job. He wonders if that’s going to have to change.

He wonders how many things after this are going to have to change.


End file.
